Science and the White House
It is a truism by now that in the era of television, politics is theater. It is more about feelings and images than about ideas and substance.
Nowhere is this more apparent--or more disheartening--than it is in science policy, a vital subject that is virtually non-existent as the candidates criss-cross the country in search of photo opportunities and sound bites for the evening news. For better or worse, we live in the century of science, and our futures as individuals, as a society and as a world depend on continued scientific progress and its wise application.
Eight months from now a new President will take office and will be faced with a bevy of scientific issues awaiting decisions. Should the superconducting super collider be built? (It appears to be in considerable jeopardy in Congress.) Should the nation embark on a project to completely unravel the human genetic makeup? Should the space station be built? Can the nation take on all of these extremely expensive big science projects and still have enough resources to support little science? If not, how should the priorities be ordered? Does there need to be a reorganization of science decision-making within a new Cabinet-level Department of Science and Technology?
Frank Press, the head of the National Academy of Sciences (a private organization) and onetime science adviser to President Jimmy Carter, recently urged the creation of a science coordinator to set priorities across the federal government. Does any candidate care to comment on that proposal? When the Reagan Administration took office nearly eight years ago, the federal government divided its spending on scientific research about 50-50 between civilian and military projects. Now three-fourths of the $61 billion that the government spends annually on research and development goes through the Department of Defense. The National Science Foundation, the principal civilian agency for basic scientific research, has proposed doubling its $1.7-billion budget in the next five years. What do the candidates think about this? What do they think the proper mix is between civilian and military research?
These are crucial questions. The United States, which continues to be the world’s leader in science, faces increasingly stiff competition from Japan and Europe in all areas of science and technology. This country practices benign neglect at its peril.
The present Administration, when it has thought about science at all, has thought about it in a spotty, ad hoc way. The President’s science adviser, William Graham, and his predecessor, George Keyworth, have been low-level scientists with low-level jobs. The country needs to draw on its wealth of scientific talent to give informed, considered input at the White House and throughout the government. Our confidence in the next President’s willingness to do this would increase if the candidates showed that they knew that these issues existed. They would make a good start by using the campaign to focus national attention on these questions and engage the debate.
